Modern requirements for the content and structure of a textbook of Russian as a foreign language

The main problems of the existing textbooks on the Russian language approved for use by the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Belarus are the poverty of their methodological apparatus and the lack of consideration of the characteristics of modern youth, which leads to a decrease in the motivation of students, especially in conditions when vocational training is organized in English, and the Russian language is studied as one of the many academic subjects at the university. The purpose of the study is to identify the main problems in creating textbooks at the present stage of development of the methodology of teaching Russian to foreign students, as well as to determine the format and content of the textbook that would be most effective for achieving the main goal of teaching - the formation of communicative competence of foreign speakers. Theoretical analysis of pedagogical sources on the research topic and observation were used as the main research methods. As a result of the study the main problems in teaching Russian in a non-linguistic university have been identified, the necessity of designing a textbook taking into account the peculiarities of the organization of the educational process and the psychological characteristics of students has been proved, and the requirements for the content of a textbook of Russian as a foreign language, taking into account its functions, have been presented. The practical significance of the article lies in the fact that the forms and means of work described in it can be applied both in the practice of creating modern textbooks on a foreign language for non-philological specialties, and in the practice of teaching Russian as a foreign language in a non-linguistic (medical) university.